Go Set a Watchman - Lee Harper - Страница 26

Jean Louise left the room.

In the livingroom, she heard Atticus’s even voice:

“… stem the tide a little bit this way … good thing he asked for one of the Maycomb lawyers….”

She would keep her coffee down come hell or high water. Who were the people Calpurnia’s tribe turned to first and always? How many divorces had Atticus gotten for Zeebo? Five, at least. Which boy was this one? He was in real dutch this time, he needed real help and what do they do but sit in the kitchen and talk NAACP … not long ago, Atticus would have done it simply from his goodness, he would have done it for Cal. I must go to see her this morning without fail….

What was this blight that had come down over the people she loved? Did she see it in stark relief because she had been away from it? Had it percolated gradually through the years until now? Had it always been under her nose for her to see if she had only looked? No, not the last. What turned ordinary men into screaming dirt at the top of their voices, what made her kind of people harden and say “nigger” when the word had never crossed their lips before?

“—keep them in their places, I hope,” Alexandra said, as she entered the livingroom with Atticus and Henry.

“There’s nothing to fret about,” said Henry. “We’ll come out all right. Seven-thirty tonight, hon?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you might show some enthusiasm about it.”

Atticus chuckled. “She’s already tired of you, Hank.”

“Can I take you to town, Mr. Finch? It’s powerfully early, but I think I’ll run down and tend to some things in the cool of the morning.”

“Thanks, but Scout’ll run me down later.”

His use of her childhood name crashed on her ears. Don’t you ever call me that again. You who called me Scout are dead and in your grave.

Alexandra said, “I’ve got a list of things for you to get at the Jitney Jungle, Jean Louise. Now go change your clothes. You can run to town now—it’s open—and come back for your father.”

Jean Louise went to the bathroom and turned on the hot water tap in the tub. She went to her room, pulled out a cotton dress from the closet, and slung it over her arm. She found some flat-heeled shoes in her suitcase, picked up a pair of panties, and took them all into the bathroom.

She looked at herself in the medicine-cabinet mirror. Who’s Dorian now?

There were blue-brown shadows under her eyes, and the lines from her nostrils to the corners of her mouth were definite. No doubt about them, she thought. She pulled her cheek to one side and peered at the tiny mother line. I couldn’t care less. By the time I’m ready to get married I’ll be ninety and then it’ll be too late. Who’ll bury me? I’m the youngest by far—that’s one reason for having children.

She cut the hot water with cold, and when she could stand it she got into the tub, scrubbed herself soberly, released the water, rubbed herself dry, and dressed quickly. She gave the tub a rinse, dried her hands, spread the towel on the rack, and left the bathroom.

“Put on some lipstick,” said her aunt, meeting her in the hall. Alexandra went to the closet and dragged out the vacuum cleaner.

“I’ll do that when I come back,” said Jean Louise.

“It’ll be done when you get back.”

THE SUN HAD not yet blistered the sidewalks of Maycomb, but it soon would. She parked the car in front of the grocery store and went in.

Mr. Fred shook hands with her, said he was glad to see her, drew out a wet Coke from the machine, wiped it on his apron, and gave it to her.

This is one good thing about life that never changes, she thought. As long as he lived, as long as she returned, Mr. Fred would be here with his … simple welcome. What was that? Alice? Brer Rabbit? It was Mole. Mole, when he returned from some long journey, desperately tired, had found the familiar waiting for him with its simple welcome.

“I’ll rassle up these groceries for you and you can enjoy your Coke,” said Mr. Fred.

“Thank you, sir,” she said. Jean Louise glanced at the list and her eyes widened. “Aunty’s gettin’ more like Cousin Joshua all the time. What does she want with cocktail napkins?”

Mr. Fred chuckled. “I reckon she means party napkins. I’ve never heard of a cocktail passing her lips.”

“You never will, either.”

Mr. Fred went about his business, and presently he called from the back of the store. “Hear about Mr. Healy?”

“Ah—um,” said Jean Louise. She was a lawyer’s daughter.

“Didn’t know what hit him,” said Mr. Fred. “Didn’t know where he was going to begin with, poor old thing. He drank more jack-leg liquor than any human I ever saw. That was his one accomplishment.”

“Didn’t he used to play the jug?”

“Sure did,” said Mr. Fred. “You remember back when they’d have talent nights at the courthouse? He’d always be there blowin’ that jug. He’d bring it full and drink a bit to get the tone down, then drink some more until it was real low, and then play his solo. It was always Old Dan Tucker, and he always scandalized the ladies, but they never could prove anything. You know pure shinny doesn’t smell much.”

“How did he live?”

“Pension, I think. He was in the Spanish—to tell you the truth he was in some war but I can’t remember what it was. Here’s your groceries.”

“Thanks, Mr. Fred,” Jean Louise said. “Good Lord, I’ve forgot my money. Can I leave the slip on Atticus’s desk? He’ll be down before long.”

“Sure, honey. How’s your daddy?”

“He’s grim today, but he’ll be at the office come the Flood.”

“Why don’t you stay home this time?”

She lowered her guard when she saw nothing but incurious good humor in Mr. Fred’s face: “I will, someday.”

“You know, I was in the First War,” said Mr. Fred. “I didn’t go overseas, but I saw a lot of this country. I didn’t have the itch to get back, so after the war I stayed away for ten years, but the longer I stayed away the more I missed Maycomb. I got to the point where I felt like I had to come back or die. You never get it out of your bones.”

“Mr. Fred, Maycomb’s just like any other little town. You take a cross-section—”

“It’s not, Jean Louise. You know that.”

“You’re right,” she nodded.

It was not because this was where your life began. It was because this was where people were born and born and born until finally the result was you, drinking a Coke in the Jitney Jungle.

Now she was aware of a sharp apartness, a separation, not from Atticus and Henry merely. All of Maycomb and Maycomb County were leaving her as the hours passed, and she automatically blamed herself.

She bumped her head getting into the car. I shall never become accustomed to these things. Uncle Jack has a few major points in his philosophy.

ALEXANDRA TOOK THE groceries from the back seat. Jean Louise leaned over and opened the door for her father; she reached across him and shut it.

“Want the car this morning, Aunty?”

“No, dear. Going somewhere?”

“Yessum. I won’t be gone long.”

She watched the street closely. I can do anything but look at him and listen to him and talk to him.

When she stopped in front of the barbershop she said, “Ask Mr. Fred how much we owe him. I forgot to take the slip out of the sack. Said you’d pay him.”

When she opened the door for him, he stepped into the street.

“Be careful!”

Atticus waved to the driver of the passing car. “It didn’t hit me,” he said.

She drove around the square and out the Meridian highway until she came to a fork in the road. This is where it must have happened, she thought.

There were dark patches in the red gravel where the pavement ended, and she drove the car over Mr. Healy’s blood. When she came to a fork in the dirt road she turned right, and drove down a lane so narrow the big car left no room on either side. She went on until she could go no farther.

The road was blocked by a line of cars standing aslant halfway in the ditch. She parked behind the last one and got out. She walked down the row past a 1939 Ford, a Chevrolet of ambiguous vintage, a Willys, and a robin’s-egg blue hearse with the words HEAVENLY REST picked out in a chromium semicircle on its front door. She was startled, and she peered inside: in the back there were rows of chairs screwed to the floor and no place for a recumbent body, quick or dead. This is a taxi, she thought.